"But we are serious, intelligent businesswomen  we're far
from the fluffy pink Barbara Cartland cliche," she said. "We're
trying to overcome the image of the bored housewife knocking out
bodice-rippers at the kitchen counter on weekends."

Ms Brideson said that more than 100 RWA members had published
overseas, and many enjoyed six-figure incomes.

The subject of recognition was strong yesterday among seven
Victorian romance writers who met for lunch at Southgate. Most have
tertiary degrees and all had successful careers before they fell in
love with writing.

Lennox has written 62 books, 59 of which are published in 123
countries. She quit her University of Ballarat job as a statistics
lecturer five years ago.

"There's a huge group of (romance) authors, but we're never
reviewed in the mainstream media, because it's not seen as serious
literature, it's not 'important'," Lennox said. "A lot of writing
courses never talk about romance fiction because it's seen as
somehow not legitimate."

Author Joan Kilby of Mount Eliza said that the literary
cognoscente ignored romance writers because the former were led by
men.

"Despite the strides women have made over the last few decades,
there is unspoken thinking that if it's done by women, for women,
then it is of lesser value," she said.

Kilby was principal scientist in water quality at the
Environment Protection Authority until 1989, when she quit to raise
her three children. After hearing a Mills and Boon author speaking
on ABC radio, she thought writing romance would be easy.

"But it's not," she said. "It took me seven years to get
published. My 12th book is coming out in January."

Stephanie Laurens, whose last 13 of her 29 historical novels
have made the New York Times bestseller list, was a
scientist who headed a cancer research laboratory until she
"retired" to write full-time in 1993. She said reading romance
novels had always been an escape from reading and writing
scientific papers and grant requests. But she "ran out of books to
read".

"So I got so annoyed, I sat down and started writing my own. I'd
put the kids to bed, fire up the computer at 8.30pm and write till
12.30am. I finished my first book in two months. I had to get to
the end to find out what happened."

She still gets a kick out of it.

"I love telling stories and you get paid well for it," she
said.

Author Keri Arthur's day job is as cook at the Essendon Football
Club.

"There's lots of inspiration running around there," she
said.

She writes paranormal romances and urban fantasies and her
novels are peopled with werewolves and vampires.

"I'd always read fantasy and horror," she said. "But it always
annoyed me that the romance part got short shrift. So I started
writing them and adding romance."

The RWA conference runs from August 26 to 28 at Langham
Hotel, Southbank.